My Black Experience With American Black Owned Businesses (And Why I Don’t Automatically Support Them Anymore)

And Why You Shouldn’t Either, Especially If You’re a White Ally

Janie
7 min readApr 30, 2022
Photo by Matheus Viana on Unsplash

As a Black woman, I’ve had THE WORST experiences with Black American businesses. These are in no particular order.

Salon #1: This shop was recommended to me by a coworker at the time. This coworker always had her hair done nicely, so I complemented her and that’s how she ended up recommending this place which is owned by her friend and the (only) stylist.

I called to make an appointment. We ended up chatting for almost 15 minutes as I was telling her how her friend referred me, and she confirmed that they were in fact good friends. I go in about 2 days later, as scheduled. The woman didn’t know who I was or have me scheduled as a new, upcoming client. She actually said “I don’t remember” … I had to refresh her of the entire conversation, and she still didn’t recall… Wtf, we spoke for several minutes?! I would’ve gotten pissed off, but she quickly agreed to see me right then despite her faulty memory and lack of professionalism.

Regardless, why the fuck are you trying to remember things? Don’t you have a book or an app where you log your clients so you have to “remember”? I was…

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Janie

Ntuitive Empath, HSP, Mom to Cats & Small Humans. Lover of Astrology ~Psychology ~Magick~Self Help & Healing. Available for winning content: mel415nn@gmail.com